How Do You Keep Your Man From Sexting?

Forbes Woman
I write about women being buzzed about & what women are buzzing about.

Earlier this year, Rep Anthony Weiner resigned after sext scandal in which it was revealed that he had been regularly sexting at least six different women.

Some of these women came forward with their stories and their emails: Meaghan Broussard, a 26-year-old single mother from Texas. And Ginger Lee, a former porn star. And Lisa Weiss, a 40-year-old Las Vegas blackjack dealer. In fact, it seems if you were female and Facebooked Weiner over the past few years, the chances were fairly high you'd get a lewd response.

In her interview with ABC News, Broussard says her online sex talk with Weiner began almost instantly after she commented on one of his YouTube videos. He Facebooked her and away they went. She said it happened so fast and he was so comfortable with the online titillation that she had no doubt he must do this regularly with other women.

Lisa Weiss asked once him, in Facebook messages, whether or not he was "Facebook cheating" on her. He replied, "Big time." (At least he was honest that one time.)

Even if no physical contact is involved, sexting is still an icky, humiliating and compromising habit. Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin (who, it turned out, was pregnant at the time this was going on) has decided to stay with her husband. In fact, polls show that most women would, although the majority also say it is "cheating."

So what can a woman do who has caught her husband sexting? Divorce may not be in the cards, but a rocky period of time is. Trust needs to be earned all over again.

To do that, women can insist on certain ground rules:

#1 No Twitter/Facebook/MySpace, or other social networking sites

While a man might need to use his computer and phone for work or to stay in touch with family members, he should stay off social networking sites. When a reporter asked Weiner if he would still use Twitter, which he used to mistakenly Tweet out a picture of his penis, he replied that he “wouldn’t use it the same way.” But experts agree he should lose his social networking privileges entirely for the time being.

#2 Don't treat sexting like it's a joke or no big deal

During his conference, Weiner referred to his actions as “frivolous.” Breaching your significant other’s trust—especially in such a chronic and long-term way—is not frivolous. If a man hopes to get his wife’s trust and respect back, he needs to own up to the seriousness of what he’s done. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t have physical contact with any other women. His words and actions were intimate—the type that should be reserved just for his spouse.

#3 Complete transparency

Alisa Bowman, founder of the ProjectHappilyEverAfter blog, which offers advice for couples in trouble, says: “A man should give his wife all of his passwords and access to all of his virtual clouds. He should keep his phone in plain sight and encourage her to check it every night. Let her read through his text messages and see everything on his calendar. Agree that the only person who ever deletes the Internet history on the computer is her. Basically, he should agree to willingly allow her to know every single thing about him.” If he balks at this, Bowman says he’s still hiding something.

A man determined to sext could still set up secret email and cell phone accounts, but at least having access to his main accounts would make continuing his online behavior more difficult for him. And, says Bowman, this is more about the man learning how to be transparent than the woman gathering actual information.

#4 Get professional help

During his press conference, a reporter asked Anthony Weiner if he would seek therapy. He said he wouldn’t rule it out, but it was clear from his tone of voice and defiant body language that he didn’t feel he needed it. Manhattan couples counselor Irina Firstein thinks otherwise: “This is addictive behavior that should be treated as any addictive behavior," she says. "It’s crucial to get professional help to understand what is feeding the addiction, and what's missing or not happening in his relationship and life that such a need was created.”

As someone who wrote extensively about my own breaches of trust via the Internet in my book Can’t Think Straight: A Memoir of Mixed-Up Love, I can identify with Weiner's wife and all women who discover this type of betrayal. Huma Abedin has a long road ahead of her before she begins to feel she can trust her husband again.

I'm a long-time Forbes and ForbesWoman writer. I cover entertainment, celebrities, trends, models, and female-oriented stories. My first book, "Can't Think Straight: A Memoir of Mixed-Up Love" was featured on The Today Show, The Joy Behar Show, in Marie Claire, The New York ...